This invention relates generally to next generation telecommunications switches and more particularly to soft switches and the facilitation of new or altered services in them.
Telecommunications switches are well known in the art. Generally speaking, a switch is a network device that selects a path by which to forward a unit of data to a next destination. Until relatively recently, switches have tended to be substantially wholly physically integrated physical entities and unique proprietary platforms dedicated to a single kind of service (such as, for example, serving the needs of long distance service providers or the needs of local service providers). As service providers and their consumers have desired and demanded an ever-widening offering of related services, however, such a closed-box approach has often constituted an obstacle to the development and fielding of new services. In many cases, the designer and manufacturer of any given switch could not or would not make the alterations that were desired by a given customer or potential customer.
As a result, more recently, so-called soft switches are becoming available. In general, the make-up of a soft switch comprises a decomposed switch architecture. So configured, the various logical elements of a switch are often provided through provision of many independent platforms that communicate and inter-operate through use of standard communications interfaces and protocols. Such a decomposed architecture offers an opportunity for considerably more designers and manufacturers to offer credible partial solutions to the switch marketplace. In various ways, the development of the soft switch has placed unprecedented opportunity in the hands of the service provider to themselves imagine and fashion new services to better serve the needs of their customer base.
Unfortunately, the decomposed nature of a soft switch has itself led to the existence of new problems that can again inhibit the ease by which a service provider can create and implement a new service. In particular, virtually all network elements in a soft switch (which network elements essentially comprise logical communications support platforms such as, but not limited to, media gateways, session managers, signaling gateways, SIP proxies, directory servers, accounting servers, and the like) each have a corresponding set of configuration parameters that control, influence, or otherwise bias and shade the exact operation of the network element. Proper setting of these configuration parameters is usually necessary to ensure compatible and supportive operation of a given network element in a given soft switch environment. Enabling a new service via a soft switch will typically require altering one or more of these configuration parameters for one or more of the network elements that comprise the soft switch.
To date, however, such configuration parameters must typically be set on a logical platform-by-logical platform basis. Even when only one or a few such logical platforms require an actual configuration parameter change to effect provision of a given new service, the system manager will typically have to review and consider most or all of the system""s network elements to ascertain and confirm this condition. Amongst other logistical challenges, this can require that the user interact successfully with a plurality of unique user interfaces as provided by potentially unique manufacturers for each network element that comprise the system. As a result, new service creation is again often at least postponed or even stymied due to the difficulty of actually ensuring that all system components are properly considered and updated as necessary to support the new service.